


Fall Where It Will

by clutzycricket



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Married Couple, Other, Pre-Threesome, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 17:16:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5548748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clutzycricket/pseuds/clutzycricket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there is a Quartermaster, a Magical Researcher, a 00, and discussions of ethics on human experimentation.</p><p>Also, a discussion on the possibility of Disney as an Evil Organization (TM).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall Where It Will

**Author's Note:**

> (See- Author Chucks Universes in Blender, Hits Button, Gets Crack Treated Seriously. Now I seriously, seriously want to expand this damn verse, which is a flaw of mine.)
> 
> Title from Lois McMaster Bujold's A Civil Campaign- “Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards.”

There was a minor collapse and a shout, and this caused remarkably few stirs in Q-branch.

“ _Verity.”_ Q was trying to fight a smile, which made Bond look around Q Branch, trying to find the source of the cursing. One of the magical researchers under Mal Hightower, he guessed, by the phrase “ _Grisha bitch_ ” amid the curses.

“Oh, hush,” a familiar voice said. He grinned, remembering the lovely, sharp-tongued Grisha woman with the masses of dark curls and no-nonsense approach to his injured shoulder. “It’s harmless, and wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been trying to **steal my supplies**.”

“A friend?” Bond asked, because teasing Q was hilarious, and he looked slightly besotted. 

“My wife, actually,” Q said, smirking a bit as Bond blinked and readjusted his thought processes. “I wouldn’t recommend your usual methods of trying to get around women with her, she is one of our best when it comes to poisons and so on. She’s also the one who supplies your liquid stitches.”

“So I need to stay on her good side,” he agreed. “Should we…” he paused, because the unfortunate, sputtering thief was covered in pink and blue dust.

“Mmm, it isn’t the hallucinogenic one, at least, that would have been a nightmare for her to explain to Hightower,” Q pushed up his glasses. “I suppose I should try and stop this. Even if Hightower likes to point out the magical section isn’t my concern, as such.” He scowled. “Conflict of interest.”

“Hightower’s a wanded witch,” Bond said, sotto voce. “They get high-handed like that, even the good ones.”

Q shrugged. “Still, they shouldn’t be rummaging in a poisons cabinet without the proper permission. I know Very doesn’t label her ingredients in English.”

Bond grinned. “Maybe she should have let them learn that for themselves.”

That earned him a sigh. “There is no hope for you.”

~

Verity- Bond realized he still didn’t know her last name- was cursing and looking at her phone. “Of all the fucking rotten timing…” It turned into an impressive, multilingual roll of curses that hopefully had no real power behind them.

“Problems?” he asked, earning him a glare.

“I’m signing the petition to bell you,” she told him, but there was no heat. “And Q and I have run into a problem- he’s working on an issue with 004, I’m stuck in a running conference with SHIELD, and I have twenty minutes to solve my issue.”

“Which is?” Bond asked, trying for innocent.

She gave him a considering look. “I have one last, desperate option before I even consider what a heart attack that asking you would give Q.” She shot off a text, getting what he suspected was an immediate no, by her expression.

He peeked at the phone. “A babysitter?” he asked curiously.

“Daughter, six, takes worryingly after her father in the sarcasm department,” Verity waved it off. “Her expected babysitter had an emergency, and I’m trying to work it out.”

“I have nothing to do for a few hours,” he said, because Verity did look exhausted, his shoulder had been aching considerably less than he knew it should be, and Q had probably seen his daughter awake less than three hours this week. “I wonder if I could smuggle her into Q branch…”

Verity pinched her nose. “I don’t… just… I’ll email the school so you can pick her up, and take her to…”

“I’ll work it out, just text me the address of the school,” he said, smiling as he left. He was very curious as to what Q would be like with a six year old.

“Oh, god, what did I just _do_ ,” Verity said to the empty room after he left. “I’m going to very, very firmly tell him to stay with Jenny at the library. _Quietly_.”

She would also, she knew, have to let them know she’d have to leave to take the call from the school confirming that he was picking up Jenny. At least Q was fond of the agent. 

And then she’d have to argue against using glass blades with Karnstien’s Kiss and _culebra_ venom on their own agents to increase effectiveness, and figure out which damn idiot in which damn agency had suggested that. Seriously, even if they had gotten around the sunlight problem...

(She may have given up Rhaenys Targaryen, heiress to the Silver Prince, but for all of the power she had given up with that name, she had not given up her darling, interfering younger brothers, or her wild cousins and their willingness to help her no matter what.)

~

It was a very firm rule that they would always try for Family Days, not promising dates, but coming up with interesting ideas and agreeing to try them when circumstances worked out. Given their uncertain schedules, it seemed less likely to cause bitterness in Jenny.

This time, it had been a trip to the movies, because Jenny, for all of her cleverness, was a seven year old girl, and Disney was possibly owned by the Devil.

Or so Q firmly believed. There had been a long negotiation about the Frozen soundtrack, and how Jennet had needed it _right now_.

They had convinced her that Christmas wasn’t that far away, and she had pouted, but Verity had started humming, producing a remarkably good reproduction of the main song. 

“Do you want to hide a body?” she sing-songed in his ear as they went up the steps, causing him to nearly stumble.

“Are you alright, Papa?” Jenny asked, looking between them, puzzled.

“Your mother,” he said, shooting the woman a Look over his glasses, “has a terrible sense of humor.”

“Blame Uncle Oberyn,” she said, brightly, remembering family jokes from when she was a child. “It’s what we all do anyway.” She stopped, head tilted and hands up in a familiar gesture. “Jenny, darling, can you take your Papa to the end of the hallway?”

Jenny paused, looking between her parents. Q focused on Verity, who was the picture of concentration. She held out one finger, something faintly troubled.

“We could call it in,” he pointed out.

“And if this is a trap? Most men will speak if you squeeze their hearts,” she said, so Jenny couldn’t hear.

Q would have argued, but there was an anxious little girl clinging to his coat, and she was right. 

Verity strolled in, one hand held to disrupt a man’s heartbeat.

“Fucking hell, Bond, what are you doing in here?” he heard, and Jenny perked up.

“Oh, it’s the man with the ears,” she said, and Q couldn’t help it, he started chuckling. Silently, but from Very’s snort, Bond had to have heard that.

”Language, Mum,” Jenny added, bouncing in.

“English,” Verity said, absently. “You got shot, didn’t you?”

“Shot, stabbed, but nothing as bad as the other fellow,” Bond said, trying to ignore Q’s glare. “I think Nadia Sharpe in Medical is trying to kill me, so I befriended your cat.”

Q looked at the cat, a Maine Coon gifted to them by Arianne for Jenny’s last birthday. “Bad Byron.” At the agent’s expression, he clarified, “Verity named him.”

Very’s expression had gone still, though, and she turned to Jenny. “Sweetling, I need you to get me the medical kit from under the sink, alright?”

Jenny- who already looked terribly like her mother- went without a word.

“Do _not_ ,” Verity said, in a voice that was as deadly as her favorite poisons, “be treated by Nadia Sharpe without understanding _everything_ she is doing. She’s one of the people arguing that we should be ‘enhancing’ field agents. Officially, I can’t say anything, but I suspect you aren’t going to say anything about being here, and that none of the upper management knows where you are.”

Bond was still and looked just short of murderous. “How close is she to getting her way?”

“In Six? Mallory hates the idea, Q knows I’d geld him, Tanner only would be interested if we could avoid killing field agents in testing, Hightower sees no reason not to as long as the agents are willing,” Verity sighed, something snapping as Q runs his hands over her wild curls, just once. It's an old gesture, from back when she stressed too much over finals and... everything else. Some of which was his fault, some of which was her own baggage. But the contact seems to ground her, making her refocus. “The WSC is pushing for it, and if you listen to enough seers, there is a medley building from all their visions that the whole mess is coming to a head. Which is why I’m warning you- it might come down to one researcher with a sample and a conviction. The Centipede issue we’ve been hearing about isn’t helping matters.”

“Someone is enhancing their men, why shouldn’t we,” Bond said bitterly.

“Well,” Q said. “Ethics, burn out, logistics, the psyches of the agents…”

Jenny came back with the kit, and they fell silent.

~

Bond had not been entirely certain what the Tailor designation meant for Grisha- something, he had been told, between a Healer and an Alchemist, making her terrifyingly brilliant at both disguises and poisons. He had also picked up from gossip that Verity had gone to some terrifying school in Eastern Europe after her mother died. 

Still, he thought of her as the friendly, wickedly-humored woman who ruffled Q’s hair when she brought lunch over, who kept a supply of healing salves that field agents kept using to hide from medical, and who hid a laugh when Q got huffy whenever anyone made a Disney reference.

(”I would seriously give consideration to a conspiracy, but Very just laughed and said it was marketing. And that I would be explaining to Jennet why I was banning the movie from the house.”)

True, she had a taste for practical jokes, but he’d noticed most of them were defensive.

("Really, Q pointed out that the soup is as easy to make for four as it is to make for three, all you need to do is ask!"

"Did you hit him with the spoon for that?"

"Besides the point, Bond. Thank you for the coffee, though.")

So when one of the friendlier Q brancher’s sent him an urgent message to get to Q’s office immediately, he hadn’t been expecting her to be standing protectively over a grey-faced Q, threatening Dr. Sharpe.

He sighed, picked up a promising looking paperweight, and snuck up on Dr. Sharpe, grateful she went down with one hit.

Everyone turned to look at him, including a wild-eyed Very.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Ding-dong, the witch is dead,” someone muttered.

“Q was working on a project that included injectable poison,” the woman who sent him the message- Roxlana, that was it- “Someone put some sort of virus in it and sabotaged the project.”

“Karnstien’s Kiss,” Verity said, dark eyes promising murder. She was running her hands over Q’s throat, frowning, clearly using power. “Vampire blood mixed with some preservatives.”

“I should have picked a heavier paperweight,” was all he could say. Q, who was mostly unconscious, bright eyes dim and fluttering, snorted.

“I need the pen, we need to find out what strain was used,” she said, finally. “I can’t undo it, and I’m only going to hurt him in slowing the spread. What I can do, however…” Her eyes turned black, and she drew a sharp, claw-like gesture with one hand, then curling it in a classic magician gesture, still leaning against Q.

Dr. Sharpe screamed awake.

“I was the Darkling’s own pupil,” Verity said, sounding very tired. “And I am very, very _angry_ right now.”

“You…” Dr. Sharpe moved to cast, but her hands would not cooperate. Mostly because they were a twisted mess.

“There was pain, of course, but I rehealed everything,” Verity said. “Now, let me focus on my husband, and _get out of this room_.”

Everyone cleared, a triumphant looking two minions- one in the purple of the Grisha Fabricators over in Hightower’s labs, one Annetje, one of Q’s R&D specialists he'd spoken to a few times- frogmarched a protesting Dr. Sharpe down to Medical.

“I said to get out,” Verity said, trying to pick Q up. Her hands were shaking, and the heavy twist used to keep her curls out of her face was coming undone. Bond simply scooped him up and made sure he was on the chair, because Q really didn’t eat enough without one of them to remind him, and just waited. 

“He’ll not be himself for the first few minutes, when he wakes, and I still need that test kit,” she gave in, fiddling with her watch. “He’s not going to want anyone to see him like that.”

“Will he be dangerous when he wakes up?” was the only question he needed to ask. He didn’t need to ask how Q would feel if his daughter was left motherless because of this.

“Make sure I get the kit, and you can stay.”

~

Dr. Sharpe had tried to pin all the blame on Verity, of course. She’d been prepared for that, once the shock wore off.

The Darkling’s old mockeries came back to her, about how nothing was so weak as to want, to love.

Eve had pointedly left the intercom on, or Mallory had arranged it, because Nadia Sharpe’s defense would have worked much better if Verity hadn’t been even and thoughtful in her criticism of the enhancement program, if Q hadn’t frowned and decided that he wanted to take one more look at the cartridge dispenser before handing it off to Felicia McGregor to use.

004 was actually _in_ the room, sparks seeming to fly off the speaker as she reamed out Nadia for her carelessness. 

“I cannot believe you thought that was a good idea, without so much as telling me, on a fucking…” 

“Language,” Mallory said, but without much heat. “ _Try_ to stay professional?”

“Clearly Dr. Sharpe can’t be trusted to,” Eve muttered.

“Being fair, neither can I,” Verity said, a slightly rueful grin on her face. It was worth it, though.

“Yes, well, I’m pretty sure you earned sainthood in the building for that,” Eve said, “Unless you mean the traps. In which case, no, we just want your secrets.”

“That isn’t the issue I wanted to discuss, it was that psychotic Rappaccini Tailor you have lurking down there! You can see what she’s done to my hands, there is no way to fix them even with magic,” Sharpe shouted.

Perhaps smug was the wrong look for permanently maiming a colleague, but Sharpe started it.

“I’m certain if you use one of the better shapeshifter viruses, you can undo most of Dr. Jourdemayne’s work,” Q said, sounding _almost_ friendly.

The part of Verity that was very much a Targaryen, vicious, slightly mad, and violently overprotective? That part was giving a mad cheer. The Martell half, wild, appreciative of a good bit of snark, and willing to throw caution to the wind? Also very amused.

But, she reflected with a quiet smile, she wasn't allowed to show those sides, only under extreme circumstances. The trick with Sharpe's hands had been skirting the line as it was, and she had to deal with a very cross vampire for risking herself like that. 

~

Q had been aware of the rumors swirling through Q branch ever since his poisoning. Verity had been looking more and more annoyed, lately, lapsing into High Valyrian as she worked.

(He pretended he hadn’t noticed a black letter with scarlet writing, smelling faintly of an odd smoke. He knew what she had done to get here, and he wasn't going to undo that if he didn't have to. Her brother Jon was added, quietly, to Jenny's approved list of people at the school.)

The enhancement project worked, at least in part. Q was proof that humans could be transformed without violent, dangerous attacks.

Now, what to do with that information? Either dismiss it and everything attached to it- including the Quartermaster-  or embrace it wholeheartedly, having at least some enhanced agents.

He still couldn’t tell how it would turn out when Bond walked into Q branch, and he…

“We’ll discuss this in your office,” Verity said, her hand a soothing presence on his back as she steered them inside.

“We’ll start talk,” James said, earning him a whap upside the head. 

“There’s _been_ talk, you followed my husband like a badly behaved puppy before this,” she said, mirth clear in every line of her body. “You were the one they called when I had my little break with morality.”

“It seemed a reasonable reaction to me.” Blue eyes met Q’s, and Q knew he’d never win no matter what stance he took. “Most wives wouldn’t be so comfortable at the thought of those kind of rumors.”

“No, no, the rumors are about all three of us, and we need to focus about the topic at hand,” Verity looked beseechingly at Q, who did not have magical 00 wrangling skills, actually. He left the magic to Hightower's department.

“Lycanthropy, really, Bond?” Q asked, leaning on his desk to look at some paperwork.

“I figured I’d make the jokes about old dogs a little easier,” he said, tone light, and not as if he would have spent days in agony as his bones resettled.

“The fact that it lifted the mandatory retirement age requirement means nothing, does it?” Verity sighed. He looked curiously at her, about to ask a question, but she waved it off. “I’ve worked with some people with that particular type, and I’ve always been good at detail work.”

Q sighed. “I suppose I should see if I can get you fitted for a dog collar, as well…”

Verity choked on her laughter at Bond’s expression.

At least the road to hell was paved with entertainment.

**Author's Note:**

> Jennet and Jourdemayne are both borrowed from "The Lady's Not For Burning", for reasons Verity/Rhaenys would get into if I ever do a sequel.


End file.
